Did not Offian hear a voice? or is it the found of days that are no more? Often, like the evening fun, comes the memory of former times on my foul. His countenance is fettled from war; and is calm as the evening-beam, that from the cloud of the west looks on Cona's filent vale. Sorrow, like a cloud on the fun, fhades the foul of Cleffammor. The mufic was like the memory of joys that are past, pleafant and mournful to the foul. Pleasant are the words of the fong, faid Cuchullin, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the calm dew of the morning on the hill of roes, when the fun is faint on its fide, and the lake is fettled and blue in the vale. These quotations are from the poems of Offian, who abounds with comparisons of this delicate kind, and appears fingularly happy in them.* I proceed to illuftrate by particular inftances the different means by which comparisons, whether of the one fort or the other, can afford pleasure; and, in the order above established, I begin with fuch instances as are agreeable, by fuggesting fome unusual resemblance or contraft: Sweet are the ufes of Adverfity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, As you like it, at 2. fc. I. Gardener. Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful King, And wound the bark, the flin of our fruit-trees; Had The nature and merit of Offian's comparifons is fully illuftrated, in a differtation on the poems of that Author, by Dr. Blair, profeffor of rhetoric in the college of Edinburgh; a delicious morfel of criticifm," Had he done fo to great and growing men, See how the Morning opes her golden gates, Second part, Henry VI. act 2. fc. 1. Brutus. O Caffus you are yoked with a lamb, Julius Cæfar, at 4. fc. 3• Thus they their doubtful confultations dark Paradife Loft, b. 2. As the bright stars, and milky way, Waller. The laft exertion of courage compared to the blaze of a lamp before extinguifhing, Taffo Gierufalem, canto 19. ft. 22. None None of the foregoing fimiles, as they appear to me, tend to illustrate the principal fubject: and therefore the pleasure they afford must arife from fuggeft. ing resemblances that are not obvious: I mean the chief pleasure; for undoubtedly a beautiful fubject introduced to form the fimile affords a feparate pleafure,, which is felt in the fimiles mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton. The next effect of a comparifon in the order mentioned, is to place an object in a ftrong point of view; which effect is remarkable in the following fimiles : As when two scales are charg'd with doubtful loads, Iliad, b. xii. 521. Ut flos in feptis fecretis nafcitur hortis, Catullus. The The imitation of this beautiful fimile by Ariofto, canto 1. ft. 42. falls fhort of the original. It is alfo in part imitated by Pope.* Lucetta. I do not feck to quench your love's hot fire, But quality the fire's extreme rage, Left it thould burn above the bounds of reafon. Julia. The more thou damm'ft it up, the more it burns: The current, that with gentle murmur glides, He makes fweet mufic with th' enamel'd ftones, He overtaketh in his pilgrimage: And fo by many winding nooks he strays Then let me go, and hinder not my course : Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. fc. 10. She never told her love; But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, She fat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at Grief. Twelfth Night, act 2. fc. 6. York. Then, as I faid, the Duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his afpiring rider feem'd to know, With flow but ftately pace, kept on his courfe: While all tongues cry'd, God fave thee, Bolingbroke. * Dunciad, b. 4. 1. 405. Duchefs. Duchefs. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the while! York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, Even fo, or with much more contempt men's eyes That had not God, for fome ftrong purpofe, fteel'd Richard II. act 5. fc. 3. Northumberland. How doth my fon and brother? Thou trembleft, and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand, Even fuch a man, fo taint, fo fpiritlefs, So dull, fo dead in look, fo wo-be-gone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd; But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue : And I my Piercy's death, ere thou report'it it. Why, then I do but dream on fov'reignty, Flatt'ring my mind with things impoffible. Third part, Henry VI. act 3. Sc. 3. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking fhadow; a poor player, That |